Wild Card: Story

Fish Gives Angler Finger

Man who lost digits in accident doesn't want back finger found in trout

By: Mike Suchan, OutdoorChannel.com

Hahns Galassi knew why police called him. He had predicted it himself months before after losing four fingers in a wakeboarding accident.

“They’re fish food at the bottom of the lake,” he said of his digits.

So when the 31-year-old software worker from Colbert, Wash., took the call from a Bonner County sheriff who said he had a strange story to tell him, Galassi knew.

“I was like: Let me guess, they found my fingers in a fish,” he told The Spokesman Review.

Well, just one Haans.

On Sept. 11, angler Nolan Calvin was cleaning a large lake trout from Idaho’s Priest Lake, about two hours from Galassi who lives outside of Spokane. He and friend were checking out what their fish ate.

“This one ate a crawdad.”

“This one ate some dude’s finger.”

“Wait, what?”

Thinking it could be an aftermath of a crime scene or something else nefarious, Calvin put that fickle finger of fate on ice and got it in the hands of police. One officer remembered the awful July 4 accident but the finger was in such marvelous condition they matched the print to Galassi.

Mystery solved.

The accident over the holiday ruined Galassi’s camping trip with friends. The tow line wrapped around his hand and ripped off his fingers, but he was left with enough middle and index finger to now pick up things and drive.

The fish found and feasted on his pinkie, which Galassi declined to recover as a keepsake when asked if he wanted it back.

“I’m like, ‘Uhhh, I’m good,’ ” he said.”Why would I want a 2-month-old dead finger? What am I going to do with it?”